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Long Live Lisch

I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.

Chris:

I haven’t written here for a while. I wish my life was interesting enough to apologize for not having enough time over the holidays due to travel or whatever, but that clearly is not the case. The truth of the matter is that this space is supposed to be a fun area for me to come in and bitch about Crews/Milik/Chaifetz beer vendors/whatever, but we are so effing horrible I can’t even bring myself to get angry anymore. I watched every minute of the Rhode Island game. This says more about my lack of a social life than anything else because pretty much from the opening tip I didn’t give a shit. SLU let up an opening 18-2 run and all I could be bothered to do was crack open a zwickel and check twitter to see if Tarasenko was still out with the flu. He wasn’t (yaaaay). I get that we were always supposed to get stomped by Rhode Island, which perhaps aided by apathetic approach to this game. The problem is that it was no different from any of our last 5 losses. This time SLU had the common decency to suck from the beginning of the game rather than waiting until the second half to go into a Jim Crews halftime speech induced coma. But that’s about all that was different. Kevin, god bless him, found the energy to post multiple times in my absence calling for Crews’s resignation. Good for him. Keep fighting the good fight, Kev. You guys have heard my thoughts on the matter at length at this point, so I’ll do my best to spare you going forward. Also, if SLU could at least try to come up with unique ways of bending over for their competition, I’d appreciate it as it would give me something mildly interesting to write about.

We are a special kind of shitty this year. We are so shitty that it defines our team’s identity. Most teams at this point of the year know their strong points and their weaknesses. They have a general idea of player rotations and defensive schemes. We have no idea about any of that shit. Why you ask? Because we are so miserable that we are forced to jack up 3-pt shots in the hopes of somehow clawing back into games. That is our offense. Not whatever motion bullshit Crews told reporters he was running against SIUe in the preseason. We get down by a bunch, then miss from behind the arc. I get it. It’s out of necessity, but at this point it defines our team’s offense. Conversely our opponents go into stall tactics and take shots a team playing normally would never attempt. Are we good in the paint? No idea. Are we good at defending the 3? Who the hell knows. Can we beat a press consistently? Maybe! The only thing we actually know is that when a game does get out of hand, it stays that way because we can’t shoot 3s for shit. Yet we do it all the time….because we have to….because we are always down by 20….because we suck.

Listen, I’m going to watch every game. I will always have some level of interest in the program. Father Lawrence Biondi bestowed upon me the title of “Son of Saint Louis University FOREVER” at my graduation ceremony, and as such this sorry excuse for a team is my birthright. I won’t blame anyone else for checking out for a bit though. I won’t fault any potential recruit who comes to Chaifetz, is excited by the great facilities, then is immediately nauseated while sitting court side at a Saturday night game. I just hope that when we inevitably have a decent team again (and it will happen) too much damage hasn’t already been done for the city to embrace them as it did during the Majerus era.

Kevin

I’m in a particularly shitty mood right now so this is the perfect time to respond to your rant.

This team has to make you laugh. I also wish we weren’t always 30 pts behind, but you and I both know that a close game and a distant game is going to result in the same frustration, only difference will be the source.

Are we good in the paint? LOLOLOL. Our three big men average 6.5 pts/game. The idea of giving it to guys that shoot under 40% from 3 feet away literally makes me want to punt any baby that shows up to baby races (this is not true at all, I’m really looking forward to that). Did you know that we rank in the bottom 30 in the NCAA for FG attempted? Could you imagine if we shot even more terrible shots than we do now? Good God stop the bleeding.

Are we good at defending the three? Not particularly, Rhode Island just put up 36 pts on 44% shooting. The last team we held to under 30% shooting from behind the arc (Indiana State) still managed to moonwalk its way to an easy victory. Even if we’re effective at the perimeter, then what? The outcome results in watching our big men swim in their own sea of suck when they would have to defend under the basket. I’d rather throw leg-brace Forrest Gump out there and see what he could do…better foot work at least.

Can we beat the press consistently? I’m shocked to find out that this team doesn’t rank last in turnover/assist ratio, considering every time I watch this team I find myself elated that we managed to inbound the ball with no press on. Ask yourself who’d you want to bring the ball up during a close game with the press on and that will give you the answer of how effective this would be (the answer is that we’d have better luck with trying one of those barking dog distraction plays).

I’m glad that you’re committed to watching this team because we need people who are still invested in the program during a down year. Me? I prefer the boos.